I’m not surprised that it has emerged again now that America has its first black Presidential presumptive nominee from a major party.

I am, however, disgusted.

Pause…sip ice water…continue.

Since one of the more infamous uses of the primate connection was pulled by Nazis during the 1936 Olympics against the great Jesse Owens, this bitch thinks it is worth pointing out that using that kind if imagery puts the person using it in a certain kind of…ummm, group.

Too often people dismiss the use of primate imagery to represent a black person as careless or lacking insight rather than acknowledging it as part of a deliberate attempt to classify black people as lesser than full evolved human beings.

Life has taught me that these folks are not worthy of the benefit of the doubt. More importantly, why the fuck do people feel the need to give them the benefit of the doubt?

Is it because people are disturbed to think that there are Americans in 2008 who respond to a black person seeking high office by dusting off Racism for Dummies and pulling out stuffed primates then dressing them up in Obama 2008 t-shirts…rustle up a simple assed grin followed by a shrug and protest that they didn’t mean anything by it?

C’mon people…this is America, for the love of all that is built on a foundation of ig’nance towards others!

We are not post racial...we do not have a population that stumbles over racial imagery like fresh faced chil'ren who have never ever ever seen that shit used in a negative way and gosh, sure didn't mean to say what they said when they did it.

These primate doll and monkey t-shirt people are not making a perfectly understandable mistake.

They are using imagery that is easily understood by the population they seek to reach.

A discussion of the primate connection is not an opportunity to point out that we humans are primates and, as members of the superfamily Hominoidea, are just another primate species and blah followed by blah and another blah.

This primate connection shit is damaging and it is wrong.

For all the attempts to perfume it up with excuses and explanations, it stinks the same stink it did (insert last time some asshole used a primate to depict a black person who threatened their notion of racial superiority).

To argue otherwise is to devolve and trust a bitch - we haven’t moved forward enough on the ledge to be taking that many steps back.

"We are not post racial...we do not have a population that stumbles over racial imagery like fresh faced chil'ren who have never ever ever seen that shit used in a negative way and gosh, sure didn't mean to say what they said when they did it."

Excellent post Black Lady!Sometimes you come up with something that is brilliantly succinct and to the point.I will credit you when I use the above.

Oh, I KNOW I will be upset about it, but I haven't seen the primate image used in connection with Obama. Do I head straight for Fox News for this travesty? If not please post a link so my blood pressure medication can do it's work.

There are people who think this is innocuous??!! I have tons to learn about how racism manifests in this country yet I understood it (and how utterly wrong and evil it is) the first time I ever heard about it. How can people be so dense?

"Devolving the other" is as old as dirt, kids. The immigrant Irish were depicted as grinning, filthy, combative gibbon monkeys in broadsheets and newspaper cartoons that Uncle Sam and Lady Liberty had to beat the snot out of (a caricature that exists today - for everyone who rightly decries Chief Wahoo, have you taken a look at the friggin' Leprechauns leaping all over the place at Notre Dame?)

Right on. President Obama is forcing the racist fifth column to show its ugly head, and face, a face that many many USofAers refuse to acknowledge when they look in the mirror every morning.

I saw an image of Mt. Rushmore the other day--and for the first time I saw it differently. I thought, "What in the hell were we thinking, carving out monuments to dead northern Europeans in the heart of the Sioux nation? Now it makes me sick.

I'm not in the business of diagnosing racism, so I can only suggest that you do some research on the use of primate images during WWI, WWII, in film and in cartoons/comics - also the Mutilated Darwinism used to twist science to fit social ideas about race.

Have you noticed the print media...it's just as bad. Obama is often if not always (which is more the case) in the shadows, dulled and darkened or even made to look grey and McCain is always in the light. In sid by side images it's even more apparent with McCain looking refreshed (as much as someone a hundred years old can), pleasant and optimistic while Obama, still in the shadows is pictured with a near scowling frown and a grimacing brow. I saw one photo recently that had altered Obama's image so much it ultimately looked like a cartoon.